E-Paper
EC announces bypolls for 7 seats; Bihar, Maharashtra in focus
In June, the Eknath Shinde-led faction of the Shiv Sena broke ranks with Uddhav Tackeray and form the government with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Maharashtra while in Bihar, chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) walked out of the alliance with the BJP in August to join hands with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), and form the government.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday announced by-elections to seven assembly seats across six states, including in Bihar and Maharashtra which will see the new political formations in both states being put to the test.
In June, the Eknath Shinde-led faction of the Shiv Sena broke ranks with Uddhav Tackeray and form the government with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Maharashtra while in Bihar, chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) walked out of the alliance with the BJP in August to join hands with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), and form the government. In Haryana, Kuldeep Bishnoi’s seat of Adampur will go to the polls after the Congress leader moved to the BJP.
Polling for these seven assembly constituencies will be held on November 3, with results being announced on November 6. The notification for the bypolls will be issued on October 7, with October 14 being the last date to submit nominations. Candidates can withdraw their nomination on or before October 17, and the by-elections have to be completed before November 8. With the announcement of the elections, the model code of conduct immediately kicks in.
Two of the seven seats are in Bihar — Mokama and Gopalganj; and one each in Maharashtra (Andheri East), Haryana (Adampur), Telangana (Munugode), Uttar Pradesh (Gola Gokrannath), and Odisha (Dhamnagar).
In Maharashtra, the Andheri East bypoll was necessitated by the death of sitting Shiv Sena MLA Ramesh Latke in May 2022. Latke had defeated Independent candidate Muraji Patel, who has now been fielded by BJP.
Patel will face Latke’s wife Rutika from the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena. The bypoll is significant as it will be the first litmus test for the Sena and Eknath Shinde after the split in the party in June. The Shinde camp of rebels is backing the BJP, which expects a split in the traditional Marathi vote bank that is dominant in the constituency. The BJP is banking on Muraji’s personal draw built as a former corporator from the area, while Sena hopes to capitalise on a sympathy wave.
In Bihar, the Gopalganj assembly seat fell vacant following the death of BJP MLA and former minister Subhash Singh, who died on August 16. The bypolls are set to be the first test for the newly forged Grand Alliance government. The BJP is likely to field the wife of Subhash Singh, who was a prominent Rajput face of the BJP and held the cooperatives portfolio in the NDA government. The decision on the GA candidate, however, is still up in the air. The JD(U) is keen on contesting the seat though the Congress, another alliance constituent is eyeing the seat as well.
The other seat going to the bypolls in Bihar is Mokama, the stronghold of RJD MLA Anant Singh who was convicted in an arms case. Leaders in the RJD said that they were likely to contest the seat.
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Anant Singh represented the seat from 2005 to 2015 on a JD (U) ticket; in 2015, he contested as an Independent and in 2020 as an RJD candidate. In the last assembly elections, Singh defeated JD (U) candidate Rajeev Lochan Narayan Singh by a margin of over 37,000 votes. For the BJP, the seat is set to be a fresh challenge with the party contesting the election after a long gap.
In Uttar Pradesh, the Gola Gokrannath assembly seat fell vacant after the death of sitting BJP MLA Arvind Giri on September 6. Giri had won the 2022 assembly election by beating the Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Vinay Tiwari by 29,294 votes, as the saffron party swept the Lakhimpur Kheri division winning all eight seats.
Odisha’s Dhamnagar seat will also go to the polls after sitting BJP MLA Bishnu Sethi died last month following kidney failure. The seat is significant as it was one of the two coastal Odisha seats that the BJP won in 2019, which the BJD will want to wrest it back.
